Interiors: Highland bling

Life has never been sweeter for the Gladstones since they downsized to a 15-bedroom hunting lodge

Charlie Gladstone, great-great-grandson of the prime minister and former band manager who has worked with the Charlatans and They Might Be Giants, decided to flee the hectic pace of London life with his wife, Caroline, 14 years ago, after the birth of their first child. “We had the classic downsizing dream,” he says. Within six months, the Gladstones had exchanged their Victorian terrace in London for a 19th-century hunting lodge in Scotland. Glen Dye is now home to their six children, two dogs and a thriving mail-order business, Pedlars.

The imposing reception hall, with warm terracotta-coloured walls, provides a fitting backdrop for the antique deer heads and antlers. “They were here when we moved in, so we left them where they were,” Gladstone explains. “They’re part of the history of the house, and we didn’t want to lose that.”